From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The new Congress convened this week after the break

following a famously productive lame duck session. Of course, much was left unfinished.

We'll focus on one item that died a quiet death, too quiet in our view, given the stakes.

I'm talking about the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.

Last month, we spoke with Tom Devine, the director of the nonprofit government accountability

project, about his decades-long effort to win real, substantial legal protections for whistleblowers in the United

States, whistleblowers all too often punished by their superiors, and whose only recourse is a federal

kangaroo court that since 1994 has decided for the whistleblowers only three times out of 210.

Divine cited several jaw-dropping examples of injustice, among them the case of George

Saris.

He was a mechanic out in Kansas, blew the whistle on not doing basic maintenance on our

intelligence aircraft for up to 30 years in some instances.

He, again, made a difference.

He got the maintenance updated.

But when he went to the IG to start their process, they said, well, you've got to have

some more evidence for us before we're going to act on this.

He gave him the evidence.

They then accused him of criminal theft of the evidence that they had demanded.

And on that basis, he had a security clearance

yanked and doesn't have any duties anymore.

The new whistleblower protection enhancement act seemed finally poised to address this and many

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